Welcome to the Age of Natural Linking

Here’s the thing. Link exchange per se is not dead. Links are still—and will always be—valuable. Just look at how many sales leads are from links, and you will agree.

However, you can no longer look at link building from the same outdated SEO-driven mentality. Times have changed, and Google’s algorithms are no longer simple formulas that are easy to manipulate. As a webmaster, you need to exercise caution and make smarter linking decisions. Here’s a quick guide.

Do not do a link exchange:

• to boost your Pagerank
• to boost your search rankings

Instead, do a link exchange:

• because the visitor you will gain from that link likely to be truly interested in your product/service 
• because the link will provide a relevant resource that is truly useful to your audience

One of the best ways to gain top-quality, relevant links from other websites is to create good content that will naturally increase your website’s popularity in the web community. You want to go after ‘editorial votes’ instead of just links. The more useful your content, the higher the chances of someone will link to it.